PNP tags 5 barangays as drug-infested
ILLEGAL drugs, mostly the synthetic shabu reportedly originating from Cavite and Metro Manila, continue to reach users and dealers in Dagupan City.
Superintendent Romeo Caramat, officer-in-charge of the Dagupan police, in a report to the city council on June 29, tagged five barangays in the city as drug-affected. These are Bonuan Gueset, Bonuan Binloc, Malued, Caranglaan and Sitio Aling in Pantal.
Caramat also said other illegal substances such as marijuana also keep coming in from Baguio, Benguet and other parts of the Cordilleras.
He revealed that the drug syndicates have already resorted to employing minors as couriers to escape detection.
In April this year, the Muslim Settlement Area in Bonuan Gueset was raided by combined Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA), a specialized unit of the police and the Armed Forces of the Philippines, where some 50 grams of shabu were seized and eight people were arrested.
Caramat, who participated in that raid as then intelligence officer of the Police Provincial Office, said the raiders discovered then that each house in the site has a bunker and back doors through which illegal drug dealers usually escape whenever the police raid the area.
He said drug syndicates are using technology including closed-circuit television (CCTV) to alert and warn their networks of an impending raid by the police.
After the April raid, drug trafficking activities transferred to another Muslim Area in Bonuan Binloc, just two kilometers east.
He tagged one Michael Bagul, former president of the Dagupan Muslim Association who is allegedly into hiding, as a major drug trafficker in the city.
The wife, two sons and daughters of Bagul were also in the PDEA’s order of battle on illegal drugs, Caramat said.
Though the drug trafficking problem in Dagupan has worsened over the years, the police lament the lack operational funds to conduct buy-bust operations against suspected drug dealers in the city, Caramat added.
He said policemen often pool their own money just to raise the marked money to be used in buy-bust operation and in some cases they no longer recover their own marked monies used for the operation since these are used as evidence. LM
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